Journal Craft Inspirations

Just a brief post to let you know we have updated our shopping site, you can now view and pay for our products in the currency of your choice - simply select your currency from the dropdown list in the mini cart on the right hand side.  We accept secure payment by PayPal and ship worldwide.

We are also very excited to be offering PanPastels, the new artists pastels uniquely packaged in a pan - no more dusty crumbling pastel sticks to deal with!  Pastels are wonderful for adding background colour to your journal pages without the problems of warping and buckling sometimes caused by wet media.  They are available in 60 wonderful colours -

       

 

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Well, you know how it is the little everyday things that bring back the memories?  Try journaling what you find in your pocket… 

It’s a topic you can re-visit from time to time, as Jerrie has indicated on her page.

From the journal of Jerrie Hall

I love John’s take on this, as he has included himself in the page…

From the Journal of John Payne
(Click on the image to view John’s blog)

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A great way to capture little things as you are travelling, is the 3 minute sketch technique featured in Dory Kanter’s book ‘Art Escapes’. By drawing a small box on the page beforehand you avoid the ‘blank page syndrome’ and can record small things that catch your eye.

“Long wait at Lille station for our TGV. My eye was caught by two musicians travelling with their cello’s when they were standing at the ticket machine.

I loved Dory Kanter’s suggestion in her wonderful book “Art Escapes” that you draw little boxes on the page and sketch inside them - far less intimidating than having to fill a whole page, it also meant I could get away with drawing only the bottom half of the ‘french chic’ girl - the top half was too difficult!”

From the Travel  Journal of Gill McCowen
(Click on the image to view original)

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A great way to add colour to your pages is to use soft pastels. Because they are applied dry they don’t buckle the paper and you can easly write over the top.

Standard stick pastels can be used by directly applying to the page, or alternatively scrubbing the stick on a spare piece of paper to create pastel ‘dust’ and applying the colour with a cotton wool ball.
The new PanPastel that come in a plastic container are ideal, as they produce very little dust and give a smooth even coverage.

After you have applied the chalk, you need to rub the surface thoroughly with clean cotton wool or a tissue, to ensure that no residue rubs off onto the opposite page. Alternatively you can use a spray fixative.

Tip - when applying pastels it is a good idea to slip in a sheet of scrap paper below the page you are working on to prevent the dust from spreading to other pages in your journal.

This page is from the journal of Gill McCowen - Moleskine Sketchbook and Soft Pastels
(Click on the image to view original)

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A great way to bring back memories of places you have visited or lived in, is to draw a floorplan - as shown in these two wonderful examples -

Home in Japan - Jerrie Hall

“All of us have special places that we want to remember…I was thinking about our 1st home in Yokuska, Japan…..40 years ago. I really wanted to remember the floor plan and as much of what we had in there…
It was a struggle to pull all of these old memories out of my brain….but on the most part, this was successful.”

Watercolour pencil in Moleskine Sketchbook

From the journal of Jerrie Hall

Childhood Home - John Payne

“I decided to do a spread of our city home before we moved to our final home in the country. It was enjoyable to try to remember all the details. Even talked to my Mom for a little help remembering.”

Watercolour pencil in Moleskine Sketchbook

From the journal of John Payne

 

 

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Photographs make a lovely addition to a journal, but have the disadvantage of making the book rather bulky.  If you are using a bound journal, and want to include many photo’s, you run the risk of damaging the binding.  There is a solution - transfer an InkJet photograph into your journal as shown in this video tutorial from Jessica Wesolek of Cre8it.com -

Inkjet printers can use either Dye or Pigment ink.  Dye ink is more commonly used, but Kodak printers and the Epson Durabrite use pigment ink.  You will obtain a better result from these pigment ink printers as there will be no bleed through the page.  Dye based printers are likely to bleed through the Moleskine Sketchbook page. It’s really only the red ink that bleeds through and you will get a pink patch on the back of the page - which can be drawn and painted over, or you can glue items in to cover it.  But if using a dye ink based printer do check that you do not have anything that could be spoilt on the page behind.

The Sheer Heaven mentioned in the tutorial can be purchased online from Cre8it.com

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Use a favourite poem or quote as the basis of a journal page

“I was inspired by this quote by Tom Stoppard - ‘Every Exit is an Entry somewhere else’. I thought of a person moving from room to room and thought it would make an interesting page if viewed from above. I used the fold of the page to repesent the division betwen rooms”
Soft pastels in a Moleskine sketchbook From the journal of Gill McCowen
(Click on the image to view original)

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How are you feeling today - happy, sad, tired…?  Use this feeling to create a page.
Let’s say you are feeling sad, what colour resonates with this feeling?
Write about what happened to make you feel that way?
List five other things that make you sad.
What is your best antidote to feeling sad - record this too…

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Make the blank page less daunting by pre-drawing shapes on the page.  This also enables you to draw quick sketches in the boxes enabling you to capture small details you might otherwise have missed.

 

“This example was drawn on vacation in France in April 2007.  A particular feature of the French landscape in Spring are the pollarded trees.  The technique of pre-drawing boxes was an ideal way for me to capture this.

From the Journal of Gill McCowen

 

“I pre-draw my shapes ahead of time and then surprise myself in how I end up filling them.  It’s less daunting to draw in a ‘window’ than to be faced with a blank page.

From the journal of Jane Humphrey

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